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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
26 July 2021
F
ourteen-year-old Noah Donohoe was an
intelligent child who attended St Malachy’s
grammar school in Belfast. He played the
cello in the school orchestra, he sang in the
school choir. He was a founding member of
the school rugby team, he played basketball, and his
team have recently introduced an annual ‘Noah Dono-
hoe Spirit Award’ to reflect his enthusiasm and
sportsmanship. He loved reading and cooking: he
could complete the Rubik’s cube in 40 seconds.
Social media is as alive with criticism of, as main
-
stream media are quiescent about, the handling by
the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) of the
tragic death of Noah whose naked body was found
950 metres into a storm drain in the north of Belfast
in June 2020, six days after he went missing. This is
not helped by the PSNI’s failure to answer questions,
even for example about the evolution of its
investigation.
Village suggests police forces in other jurisdictions
would not be so evasive.
Noah disappeared on Sunday 21 June last year
when he left his home at 5.30pm to travel by bike to
Cave Hill country park to meet friends. For six days
while Noah was missing the people of Belfast came
together in their thousands to search for him.
During this time the PSNI repeatedly stated at its
press conferences that Noah had cycled approxi-
mately four kilometres across the city from his home
in south Belfast to north Belfast, where police said
they believed he may have fallen o his bicycle and
hit his head. He was seen discarding his clothes and
cycling naked, actions which police and his family
said were “completely out of character”. The police’s
main line of inquiry was that he may have suered
some form of trauma which had left him either disori-
entated or incapacitated.
Noah was found on the morning of Saturday 27
Ulster says Noah
by Michael Smith
The PSNI has been lackadaisical in
investigating mysterious death of
teenager and communicating with
family
He loved reading
and cooking: he
could complete the
rubik cube in 40
seconds.
June. The PSNI immediately stated “But there is no
evidence to suggest foul play”. The PSNI decided this
within hours and appear to be pushing the Inquest to
find death by ‘misadventure’ or ‘suicide’.
The family demur, and claim the police investiga-
tion was flawed from the start. There is a Facebook
group supporting the family with over 110,000 mem
-
bers from around the globe and a twitter account with
27,000 followers.
The central mystery centres on the reality that no
humble, awkward 14-year-old child would willingly
remove his own clothing and proceed naked through
the streets of a densely-populated, unfamiliar area to
a storm drain. The PSNI implied that Noah removed
his clothing by choice, yet no one saw this. There is
no CCTV available showing Noah removed his cloth
-
ing. Noah is last seen on CCTV with no clothing but
anomalously there is no clue how, and where, he was
separated from this clothing.
Police ocers found the teenager’s backpack and
laptop in a search on June 26. The items had allegedly
been ‘picked up’ by a known criminal, Daryl Paul, who
has 194 convictions. It is continually stated that…
“Paul is not suspected of having any direct contact
with the teenager told the police he found the
computer”.
As there are so many anomalies, this article focuses
on the questions Village asked the PSNI, but to which
it failed to get answers. It has highlighted them in
bold type.
How could the PSNI conclude before his post-mortem
had taken place that there had been no foul play and
suggest to the Inquest that it should find death by
‘misadventure’?
The woman who witnessed Noah fall from his bike
stated publicly that she told the police several times
that he did not hit his head. Noah also had a
Noh: Enthusism nd Sportsmnship
NEWS
July 2021 27
protective hat on. Yet the PSNI insisted in all
its reporting, with an unexplained prescience,
that there is likely to have been a concussion
due to hitting his head.
If, as stated by PSNI Superintendent Muir
Clark, “In [my] 30 years in the police, this is one
of the most unusual missing person inquiries
that I have dealt with”, why was it not fully
investigated? If this case was so ‘unusual’ you
would expect an exhaustive police investiga-
tion pursuing every line of enquiry, yet the
police settled on conclusion of ‘no foul play’
and they quickly excluded all other lines of
enquiry.
Extraordinarily the coroner then stated that
Noah had a bump to his head that was so minor
that it would not cause an injury, when his head
injury of about 16cm in circumference was vis-
ible to the family.
Since he did not hit his head it would seem
reasonable that they would investigate the
possibility of an assault.
Why did the PSNI not straight away seal-o the
area between where Noah was last sighted,
and where he was found? Why were search
dogs (operated by volunteers in SARDA) on
standby but never deployed by the PSNI?
There were problems with the PSNI investi
-
gation even before Noah was found. This was
a missing child; it was totally out of character
for Noah not to be in contact, yet there was no
police search.
The search was being carried out by the
public and the Community Search and Rescue
(CSR). Although the support from the public in
searching for Noah was helpful, it was improper
for the police to allow thousands of people to
walk across and contaminate
a potential crime scene. Best
police practice would have
been to straight away seal-o
the area around where Noah
was last sighted, and for the
Police to be involved in the
control of the searches.
Search dogs (operated by
volunteers in SARDA) were on
standby but the PSNI never
sought their deployment.
Why were the bin lorries
emptied?
On the Tuesday morning,
while Noah was still missing,
in the densely populated area
of Northwood where he was
last sighted by CCTV, the
Council bin lorries were
allowed to empty bins though
a crime appeared to have been
committed. The family was
outraged by this as they had
asked for the ocers to pre-
vent the bins from being
emptied, to no avail.
Some of the child’s clothing was found in the
street but not all items have been retrieved: his
underwear, shorts, and ‘North Face’ raincoat
are missing.
It is strange that no-one has ever come for
-
ward to say they found or saw these items of
clothing.
Why did the PSNI decline requests from the
family to see the CCTV, saying the release of
any footage must comply with the National
Police Chiefs’ Council policy which govern this
process.
Is this really a legitimate reason to keep the
footage from a concerned and grieving family?
The family was shown a sequence of clips by
the PSNI and Coroner - no longer than four or
five seconds each at a rough estimate - from
22 cameras, some of which were dashcam, res-
idential and private cameras.
One of the clips appears to be from a camera
belonging to Ulster University but strangely for
a camera that was so close and in a very bright
walkway on a summer afternoon, it is virtually
impossible to make out Noah in this clip
An argument could be that this is all the PSNI
have but then it was apparently clear enough
for the PSNI to surmise that Noah was not
attacked/approached by anyone and ‘left’ his
bag and laptop in the city centre.
Why did the PSNI not get CCTV images?
The family has since approached businesses
asking for them to share CCTV images. They
have been told that the PSNI did not request
these. When one business approached the
PSNI they were told that someone would be
down to collect as it could be significant. The
following day, the police attended the business
to say it was not necessary to take the CCTV as
what happened was a tragic accident.
Members of the public have also oered
dashcam that the PSNI did not appear to want.
Why have two people featured on CCTV not
been tracked down?
The family has revealed how minutes before
Noah was last seen, two potential witnesses
were picked up on a CCTV camera passing him.
These individuals have never come forward
to police.
In the CCTV there’s a silver car which turns
just as soon as Noah turns [onto Northwood
Crescent] and there is somebody at the top of
the CCTV that can be seen walking.
Why has the timing of Noah’s last sighting - on
the sections of CCTV chosen to be shown to the
family - changed three times to suit the PSNI’s
shifting narratives?
Considering the last time shown in the CCTV,
it is extremely questionable when Noah had the
time to remove his clothing and place some
items neatly on a wall.
One house in the area that
Noah disappeared has six CCTV
cameras covering three angles
but the PSNI has not requested
these.
Why will the PSNI not carry out
the necessary reconstruction?
However, no-one can be sure
of the timings of Noah’s journey
as the PSNI will not carry out the
necessary reconstruction to
confirm times or help jog memo
-
ries. In those circumstances the
family poignantly plan to do it
themselves.
The PSNI told the family that
they had distributed leaflets to
the houses in the area asking for
information. A local reporter
asked the PSNI for a copy (on
behalf of the family), but was
told that no leaflets existed and
obviously had not been distrib
-
uted. What really happened?
Who locked the drain and why
was it open in the 1st place? Has
How can the PSNI insist that
there is likely to have been
a concussion due to hitting
his head?
28 July 2021
the PSNI determined who had access to the storm
drain?
The drain was dicult to find so that even people
who had lived in the street for 20 years did not know
one was to be found at the rear of three properties.
The PSNI has launched a Corporate Manslaughter
investigation centring on the access to the storm
drain, which is owned by the Department for Infra-
structure (DfI). Noah’s body was found 950m into the
drain which it is believed was unlocked and had been
locked after he, allegedly, entered it.
Why were no water samples ever taken from the drain
to see if they matched the water in Noah’s lungs pre-
sumably to be found if he drowned in the drain?
Noah was found in a drain after six days. It was not
then known whether he had died from drowning. The
family has asked for water samples and were assured
that samples would be taken. Yet no water samples
were taken from the drain.
When the lack of samples was questioned the Coro-
ner said he did not think it was important as they
already knew Noah had died by drowning. But there
was no way they could have been – forensically – cer-
tain of this when Noah was found, and they could not
know whether the water in the drain was the same as
the water in his lungs.
Has the PSNI followed up on the statement about the
homeless community and those struggling with
addiction issues?
After a preliminary hearing on 18 January, Niall
Murphy, the family’s solicitor stated: “We have reason
to believe that there is a particular and specific knowl-
edge of this assault in the homeless community and
with those struggling with addiction issues, both in
the city centre and also from people who were resi
-
dents at Queens Quarter housing association in
University Street, specifically people resident there
in June. The court will be aware that Noah lived metres
away from Queens Quarter on the day he went
missing”.
The family have a witness who came forward to
them in November and provided the PSNI with infor-
mation. The witness lived in a hostel located metres
from Fiona and Noah’s home in Belfast. The witness
gave a statement to the PSNI naming four individuals
who allegedly intercepted Noah
in the vicinity of Royal Avenue.
This was being talked about
within circles she was part of but
she would not remember where
she was at the time. The four
named individuals are career
criminals and also lived in the
same hostel, one of the 4 moved
out of the hostel the next day.
Noah’s laptop was recovered
from her room in this hostel after
it was reported that she and
Daryl Paul had tried to sell the
laptop to Cash Converters. The
shop refused and called the
PSNI.
The witness is a known associ-
ate of Daryl Paul, who visited her hostel daily. It was
Daryl Paul who then apparently found Noah’s laptop
in the city centre.
The family do not believe that the PSNI have acted
on the statement beyond ‘inviting’ one of the four
people in for questioning. This person agreed to this
three weeks later.
Is the PSNI open to the possibility he died some way
other than by drowning?
There have been other attacks in the area where
Noah was found. Teenager Flynn Maguire was left
with an enormous gash to his head by a marauding
mob. This assault occurred just a few weeks before
Noah went missing on his way to Cavehill, yet the
police refuse to entertain a similar incident with a pos-
sible sectarian element being linked to Noah’s
disappearance.
Why, after Noah was found, has the PSNI never
requested any more information from the public and
without explanation removed the early posts from its
website?
After Noah was found the PSNI never requested any
more information from the public and have inexplica-
bly removed the early posts from their site. And there
have been no calls for information from the public.
The PSNI’s communication with the family has been
poor. The family’s distress is compounded by having
to find out details on social media or from, some-
times, inaccurate newspaper reports.
The coroner has threatened contempt of court pro
-
ceedings against those asking probing questions.
The PSNI spuriously justified closing down media
inquiries on the basis that the family needed privacy.
Many politicians and journalists seemed content to
take this as their lead.
The family now have their own investigation team
working with them. It includes Donal MacIntyre who
is documenting what is happening. And Detective
Clive Discroll who was instrumental in finally getting
convictions in the Stephen Lawrence case where a
London teenager was murdered for racist reasons. It
resulted in a famous inquiry finding institutional
racism in London’s Metropolitan Police Force. The
Lawrence family has been supporting the Donohoe
family from the early days. The team also includes
pathologists and other technical experts.
Is the PSNI open
to the possibility
he died some
way other than by
drowning?
